Happy World Osteoporosis Day!      O.K., I realize that this is a day of awareness, but it does sound like it is a day to celebrate a very misunderstood disorder. For those of our Silver Inner Health Circle™ members who have either been living in a cave or with their heads in the proverbial sand I will give a brief lesson in osteoporosis. First of all it is an international epidemic. However this epidemic is extremely preventable and I will discuss some of the things that you should be doing to avoid "it" in just a minute.         Furthermore, those of you men who just got ready to delete this Interim Newsletter because it only applies to your wife, mother, girl friend or significant other, you had better think again. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation 2 million of you have osteoporosis, and another 12 million of you are at risk of developing it, which means that you probably have osteopenia. By age 30 you have attained peak bone mass and then you begin to loose density. It is affected by such things as heredity (which we all know can be either up-regulated or down-regulated. Remember your epigenetics diet (you must "Eat Right"), sex hormones (estrogen depletes bone mineral density, and increases your incidence of breast cancer, also low levels of testosterone, which is becoming more common in even younger males will deplete bone mineral density), physical activity (you need to "Move Right"), life-style choices (that's what we are all about), and certain drugs (such as steroids like prednisone and its derivatives which rob your bones of calcium and can cause a drug related onset of osteoporosis).        For all, smoking will stimulate the onset of osteoporosis. Excessive (I love that equivocal word) alcohol use will cause a decrease in calcium deposition in bones. Low calcium intake, and as I stated already reduced physical activity will stimulate the onset of osteoporosis.        Alright that is the bad news, so what do we do about it? Well first of all you need to be getting regular weight bearing exercise. Do some simple things like use the stairs at home and at work, and park far away from the front door of the store. Walk everywhere that you can.        Secondly make sure that you are getting in plenty of a good source of calcium like our Calcium Citrate with Vitamin D. Most of our foods have been depleted of Calcium due to the fact that the soils in which most mass produced vegetables are grown have been robbed of calcium, iodine, and many other essential minerals. Therefore it is necessary to supplement.        You also have to remember that we are living in a society that has been deficient in Vitamin D for decades, for many reasons. Not the least of which is the medical communities obsession with driving everyone's cholesterol to ridiculously low levels which in my opinion is extremely unhealthy. The other problem is that we have a public who is afraid of the healthy and healing UV rays form the sun. Therefore we are encouraged to slather ourselves with UV 50 sunscreen in order to avoid skin cancer; when in fact we should b getting 10 minutes per day of full body sun exposure in order to be healthy. Cholesterol and sunlight are 2 essential raw materials needed for your body to manufacture Vitamin D.        Now here is the latest that you need to know on preventing osteoporosis. I have had patients reverse the ravages of osteoporosis and osteopenia by caring for the parathyroid glands. These four tiny areas are actually specialized pieces of the thyroid gland which is responsible for calcium metabolism in the body. So by supporting the parathyroid glands with specific targeted functional nutrition we have seen the Bone Mineral Density (BMD) (which is measured with a test called a DEXA scan) go up to normal ranges. Please read one of our patient's story here.       Here is one more cutting edge study that I am sure not too many have reported on. According to the British Journal of Nutrition as reported in April of this year, Omega 3 Fatty Acids (a.k.a. Good Quality Fish Oil) will reduce the likelihood that you will acquire osteoporosis. The authors of this research went on to state that "....both DHA and total omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids strongly correlate to Bone Mineral Content". In other words, good strong healthy bones.        Can stress cause a reduction in bone mass? You bet! If you haven't watched my "Stress and How It's Killing You" DVD you need to watch it several times to see what you can do to help deal with the physiological changes that adversely affect your body as a direct result of stress.       So, go out and enjoy World Osteoporosis Day now that you know a few things that you can do to prevent this "preventable disorder", and do someone a favor and share this with them!               Yours in Health,                    Dr. Pfeiffer

Copyright 2010, Upper Perkiomen Chiropractic Center. All rights reserved. This article is protected by United States copyright and other intellectual property laws and may not be reproduced, rewritten, distributed, re-disseminated, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast, directly or indirectly, in any medium without the prior written permission of Upper Perkiomen Chiropractic Center. DISCLAIMER These statements have not been evaluated by the Food & Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Always consult with your health care professional before changing any medications or undertaking intense physical activity.   This email has been sent on behalf of your practitioner, Dr. Douglas G Pfeiffer DC  |  Center for Nutrition and Wellness  |215-679-WELL (9355)